Loss will linger more than any of OSU wins

Dec. 9, 2013

Written by

Jon Spencer

News Journal

OSU By The Numbers • 0: Points scored by the Buckeyes in the first quarter Saturday, the first time they’ve been shut out in the opening period this season. • 1: Third- and fourth-down conversions in 12 attempts Saturday night. • 2: Losses to Michigan State in their last 10 meetings, including Saturday’s 34-24 loss in the Big Ten Championship Game. • 3: Touchdowns Braxton Miller accounted for Saturday in becoming the first quarterback in B1G title game history to both run and throw for a TD. • 4: Consecutive games Braxton Miller and Carlos Hyde have each rushed for over 100 yards. • 57: Times the Buckeyes have scored in 60 red zone chances this season, including 4-for-4 vs. Michigan State. • 128: Yards rushing Saturday by MSU’s Jeremy Langford, making him the first back this season to top 100 vs. the Buckeyes. • 142: Yards rushing by Braxton Miller on Saturday, the most by a quarterback in Big Ten Championship Game history. • 304: Yards passing by MSU quarterback Connor Cook vs. the Buckeyes, his first 300-yard performance. • 679: Days between losses for the Buckeyes. Before Saturday night, their last loss came Jan. 2, 2012 to Florida in the Gator Bowl. • 8077: Career yardage for Braxton Miller, who Saturday joined ex-QB Art Schlichter as the only Buckeyes to top 8,000.

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They had a pair of 100-yard rushers for the fourth straight game, played turnover-free ball, converted on all four of their red zone opportunities, scored 24 unanswered points, led going in the fourth quarter ...

... and lost.

Michigan State’s streak-busting 34-24 win in Saturday night’s Big Ten Championsip Game is going to hurt for a long time, partly because it had been a long time since Ohio State’s football team had felt any sort of hurt. Twenty-four games and 679 days to be exact.

The Buckeyes should be proud of their school-record winning streak,constructed in the throes of an NCAA scandal and ending at the cusp of a national championship game. It’s just hard to appreciate at the moment when the overriding image is of yet another crew of pass receivers looking like the real streakers in running away from OSU’s beleaguered secondary.

During the game former Ohio State offensive lineman Kirk Barton tweeted of Michigan State quarterback and transplanted Ohioan Connor Cook: “Just a guy.” Right, just another guy, another opposing quarterback enjoying a career day at the Buckeyes’ expense.

By my count, that’s seven this season.

We hear all the time how Michigan snidely refers to Michigan State as its “little brother.” Well, the Spartans are Ohio State’s kid brother, too, their lineup filled with players the Buckeyes didn’t want.

Makes this loss that much more galling, right?

Cook, who wasn’t on OSU’s radar in high school or in the defense’s cross-hairs Saturday night, threw for 304 yards and three touchdowns one week after Michigan quarterback Devin Gardner riddled the Buckeyes for 451 yards and four touchdowns.

A sullen Urban Meyer, almost Belichickian in his post-mortem, muttered something again about fixing the secondary. But, he’s run out of time — even with a month to prepare for the Orange Bowl against Clemson. Even without the injured Christian Bryant, we’re talking about a mostly veteran bunch — fourth-year junior cornerback Bradley Roby and fifth-year senior safeties C.J. Barnett and Corey “Pittsburgh” Brown.

They are who they are. How much tweaking of the gameplan can be done at this point to hide the flaws, especially when they’re about to face one of the nation’s best receivers in Clemson’s Sammy Watkins?

Most of the blame is going to be dumped in co-defensive coordinator Luke Fickell’s lap. In 38 games as interim head coach and then coordinator under Meyer, the opposition has scored 21 or more points 20 times. Five times this season, the yield has been 30 or more points.

Some of that is this era of highfalutin offenses, but we’ve also been spoiled by the likes of Michigan State head coach Mark Dantonio. As a D coordinator with a knack for making adjustments on the fly, he helped win a 2002 national championship for Ohio State in between ruining two other bids — last night and as the Spartans’ DB coach when they sprang a huge upset in 1998.

In Fickell’s defense, it’s not fair that just because he’s been a face of the Buckeyes since playing for them in the mid-Nineties that he’s always the member of the defensive staff trotted out to answer to the on-field breakdowns. Where’s Everett Withers? He’s “co” coordinator and coach of the safeties, who have under-performed.

For Meyer and offensive coordinator Tom Herman, it wasn’t one of their finest hours either. You saw how the Buckeyes started gashing Sparty on the ground with quarterback Braxton Miller and tailback Carlos Hyde, and yet Hyde finished the game with only 18 carries — nine less than last week at Michigan when he rumbled for 226 yards.

On two critical third downs in the second half, Hyde wasn’t on the field for one and was split out wide on the other. He’s not scaring anyone lined up like a wide receiver. On three crucial second-half series — with the Buckeyes trying to expand a 24-20 lead and then trying to rally from a 27-24 deficit — Hyde carried the ball a total of four times.

When asked if, in retrospect, Hyde should have had more carries, Meyer kept his answer short: “Yeah.”

Meyer said it was his ill-fated call, on fourth-and-a long one, with the game hanging in the balance, to have Miller run wide behind the lead blocks of Hyde and tight end Jeff Heuerman.

It may be mere coincidence. But coming off a rivalry game the Buckeyes were held scoreless in the first quarter for the first time this season, seemingly making my case that it’s hard to maintain that emotional peak in back-to-back games — especially at the end of a long season — and that the Ohio State-Michigan grudge fest should be moved to the first week of the Big Ten season.

Next year, when college football implements its four-team playoff, the season-ending grind only gets tougher.

Why not at least lessen the emotional toll by playing the Michigan game earlier?

Hyde won’t be around next year to worry about it. But he’ll have Saturday’s loss to bedevil him forever.

“Man, it hurts,” he said. “To be a senior, in my last year, to be that close to a national championship, to fail ... that hurts.”